More favorites

It’s difficult for me to read fiction while I’m writing. I don’t want to be influenced by another writer’s style or topic. But, at heart, I’m a reader and I need to read. Now I read slowly, savoring words and the turn of a phrase. Come a rainy or gloomy weekend, latte in hand, I speed through a mystery or thriller. It’s heaven. But for me, heaven (part of it) is reading.

Revisions, playwriting, and more revisions filled my 2011. I did find time to read. Here are some of my favorites.

Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Zafron Ruiz
Murder in the Palais Royal, Cara Black
One False Move, Harlan Coben
Silver Sparrow, Tayari Jones
The Story of Beautiful Girl, Rachel Simon
Uptown, Deberry and Grant
Wading Home, Rosalyn Story
The Age of Dreaming, Nina Revoyr
French Lessons, Ellen Sussman
Children of the Waters, Carleen Brice
When the Thrill is Gone, Walter Mosley
Sag Harbor, Colson Whitehead
Rattlebone, Maxine Clair
The Taste of Salt, Martha Southgate

What books did you enjoy in 2011? Did you discover any new writers?

Wishing you joyous holidays and a wonderful 2012!
Jackie

When I travel, I love to explore without purpose. Paris is a place where no one knows (and sometimes doesn’t care) who I am or what I do. That creates a kind of freedom to stare and consider, don’t you think?

The flower shops in Paris are "trés belle" inside and out.

During my last visit, I stayed in the 6th arrondissement* not far from the famous Boulevard St. Germain des Prés. I’d already decided that Paris and jazz were going to be important parts of PASSING LOVE, but I had no idea of its past. It wasn’t until I took a tour, and started that aimless walking I so enjoy, that I learned who had tread the very same cobblestone streets of my neighborhood.

St.-Germain has a recent history that connects it to the U.S. Baldwin, Wright, and Hemingway are among the authors who walked the streets of the 6th. In late ‘40s and early ‘50s Bud Powell, Lester Young, Sidnet Bichet, Max Roach, and other well-known or struggling jazz musicians flocked to the clubs that dotted St.-Germain. The musicians were adored and enjoyed, and Parisians partied all night long to their music.

I wanted to learn as much as I could about jazz and Paris. I found many other places in the city where our American musical forefathers performed, played and lived. It was calming experience, and I felt closer to the city by learning more about it.

The booksellers on the Left Bank line the balustrade along the Seine

Wandering can be a kind of meditation that forces us to acknowledge and appreciate the details of the cities we love.

What city streets can you hardly wait to walk and explore?

*Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements or municipal districts, that spiral outward like a nautilus shell. I included a list of places and people in PASSING LOVE.

The famous tower from the Seine

The idea of all things French began with my name; both my sister and I have French names, spelled exactly the way, the French way, they’re supposed to be. Le français—tiny bits of it—has surrounded me all my life. My sister is named after a saint–no ordinary saint either, one who performed miracles; there is no St. Jacqueline (that I know of, even with 12 years of Catholic school). Yes, I know where my name came from, (it’s the feminine of Jacques/James), but the why remains a mystery to me.

My fascination led me to France and not one, but two novels about Paris. In the larger sense, my love of Paris, and writing about it, really speaks to something bigger and applies to each and every one of us: the importance of making our dreams come true. The size of the dream, the cost of it, the obsession with it doesn’t matter.

It took me a long time to start writing. I’ve finally begun to understand that it doesn’t matter how long it takes to get around to fulfilling your dream, just as long as we have them and try our best to fulfill them. A dream has two parts: getting there and being in the moment. Dreams complete our lives. Loving the process of moving closer to our endpoint, is what brings us joy. So, what are you dreaming of?

My gig, writing, is my passion and I’m so grateful for it. Have I told you how much I love every single step from creation to the pains and revelations of revision, to seeing my book in stores (and my readers, too!)? I’m even more grateful to be able to blend my love for Paris and my love for writing into my work as well. My next novel, PASSING LOVE (releases January 2012), explores a woman’s admiration for Paris, and the surprises and secrets that city holds for her.

I believe with all we have to do and all that we’re bombarded with (the responsibilities for home, family, work, and the ever-invasive (and addictive) Internet and TV) we sometimes forget the little things that fulfill our passions. So today, I declared that my passion is the present, the here and now. I focused on the joys each moment this day has held: phoning rather than emailing a friend and laughing together (LOL just doesn’t make up for the sound of a good giggle), finding a great recipe for buttery scones and, yes, planning to bake them soon, finally understanding the directions to a new writing software program and starting to put down my thoughts for novel number three; my mother’s voice, strong and steady, on the other end of my phone, her wish that I have a good day and the “I love you,” at the end of our conversation.

Simple stuff but, taking a closer look, aren’t most of the things we’re passionate about just that? Simple. If you could break your passion down into one simple thing today, do you know what it would be?

My plan is to make daily entries over the next 365 days. I admire everyone who “journals.” It takes tenacity and commitment to self. Different, I believe, from the commitment I have when writing a novel or short story. Reality vs. fiction. Hmmm. Working on my stories becomes my job, a job I love, when I sit down at my computer. (That’s why my journal entries will be by hand.) I don’t know what I’m trying, or if I’m trying, to discover anything. It’s another opportunity to write, a chance to get out of my head, and perhaps, a chance for safe release.

Over various times in my life, I’ve kept diaries. Maybe if I’d thought of them as journals, I wouldn’t have had so many pages filled with such curt entries: “I didn’t do anything today.” “Went to school, came home, watched TV” (which kind of sounds like my life today). “Bored.” “Another Saturday night with Mary Tyler Moore.”

My parents gave me diaries; Christmas and birthday gifts for their teenager. (Their subtle encouragement to write?) They were five-year diaries. Small books with lined pages divided by bold blue lines into sections for each of the years they covered. The diaries had a lock and key. I think my sister read my entries at least once or twice (isn’t that what all little sisters do?). I remember her teasing me—I’m sure I wrote out the names of boys that I liked, boys that rejected me because I was skinny and naïve. I’m sure I tried to beat her up.

I still have one of those diaries. It might be the original. I’m not sure. It’s from high school and seems to have a few entries from my college days. I had a habit of skipping years and returning to the same diary, filling in and re-dating empty pages. The spaces in that book were not enough, sometimes, to hold all of my thoughts, so I wrote on separate pieces of paper and taped them to the dates that I was writing about—more feelings than the details of events. The extra pages still stick out, letting me recall now those emotional turning points in my life.

In the most recent issue of O Magazine, Oprah included pages from her journals. I read the first entry about the boy who asked her to be his girlfriend and released a huge sigh of relief. I, too, had written about that first boy who asked me to “go” with him when we were leaving the eighth grade and off to our separate schools. D. Montgomery—I can see him now. As skinny as I was; cute, curly hair, nice smile. I wanted to “go” with him, but I was afraid to. I didn’t understand what “going” with someone meant and that obedient Catholic girl, the good girl who lived inside of me and kaboshed any efforts I ever made to extend beyond her control, made me say no. No! All through high school, I recalled how I must have looked at the first dance of his all-boys school: alone, standing in the corner, watching him holding hands with some other girl and wishing I could take back that “no.”

For me, Oprah’s revelation of her private thoughts (the pining so close to the same sadness I had in my twenties, heck! my thirties) was a bit like eavesdropping at the door of my parent’s bedroom; the reality of what might have been going on a bit too much to handle. Thankfully, Oprah’s sidebar comments summarized her entries so that I didn’t have to read her words, face her emotions, work through her handwriting or consider how close to her heart these words were. Maybe this ability of Miss O, her willingness to open her life and let go of the past, is just another secret to her success. I admire her for sharing. I find it hard to make even the smallest personal admissions to my close friends, let alone millions of people.

Now, let me go on record and say that I’m not journaling because Oprah does. Puh-leeze! Frankly, I’ve been toying with the idea of starting again for a while. The bigger lesson, for me, is to journal not as much as a way of keeping track of what I do everyday (though sometimes I need that reminder), but more as a trusted and sacred place to record how I feel, what I’m grateful for, what keeps me going, and how I can conquer the negatives that assault each and every one of us on a daily basis. Once the year is up, I don’t know if I’ll continue or even read what I’ve written—unless, perhaps, I find a core for another novel. I know for sure I won’t share more than one or two lines that might make good tweets. ☺

Whatever, it’s going to be interesting. Join me?

Today, I’m invited to a party, a celebration. My hostess told me that while waiting for her mother at the doctor’s office, she came across the obituary of a man we knew. He’s the second or third peer who has passed over the last year. “I’m tired,” my friend said, “of running into people I used to know at the funerals of people who are my age. It’s time to celebrate life.”

In December, another friend had a medical crisis. The reality of her situation and the recent news of death has caused a bit of reflection. This awareness of the thin lines between health and illness, between life and death remind me to be thankful. Not just at the beginning of the year with resolutions and lists, not just because someone I cared about was ill, but because I want gratitude and celebration to be constants in my life.

I believe each of us has to take some sort of recap of our lives, whether it’s prompted by year end, the new year or learning that someone you knew has passed on. We should do it often—a reality check and a declaration of gratitude. So thinking about this celebration of life I’m invited to, I reflect back on 2010 and some of the things I’m grateful for.

1) For closets and drawers full of clothes and clean underwear. There are those who have nothing to put on their bodies, and sometimes no one to care that they don’t.
2) My first novel was published!! In bookstores I saw MY book, MY name on its spine and cover. My spirit feels settled in my passion—my love of reading, of creating stories like I did so long ago. Book 2, PASSING LOVE, due out in January 2012. An opening . . .
3) My sister. My mother, vibrant still at 88. She attends all my local readings. If her knees and back worked better, I know she’d be with me on every flight, right there in the audience, my anchor. If I were on Oprah, she’d be in the audience, asking that famous woman what took her so long to get me on her show . . .
4) The joy of positive, supportive people. I’ve rediscovered old acquaintances and friendship from all corners.
5) For the lesson of minding my money and asking questions when people want to spend it . . . ‘cause ain’t nobody gonna worry about your nickels and dimes, quarters and dollars, except you—ENUF said.
6) I’m learning to pause, to observe my breath, my heart beat, the joy that resonates in my spirit . . .
the cookie, the peanut brittle, the cake crumb
the hot tea, the latte
the 5’oclock glow of the setting sun
laughter
a good meal
leaves on the ground
silence
my next breath . .

What’s on your list?

Got my first hate mail today. Disrespect from cyberspace.

And there’s a little lesson in it for everyone.

I sort of figured the hate mail would happen sooner or later. I just didn’t think the “hater” would be the person it was.

Ironically, or maybe not, the hate mail had nothing to do with Searching for Tina Turner—but then, maybe it did. Maybe that person didn’t like my characters or story, maybe they were having a bad day, or maybe they just wanted to “dis” me for having written and published my novel. Maybe they’re sad because I took steps in a direction away from them. Maybe they had a hard time separating fantasy and reality. Funny, that people forget FICTION means invention or fabrication NOT statements of fact. They forget that a writer’s job—my new job—requires embellishment, twisting and turning the ordinary into stories that entertain, charm, baffle, scare, or carry a reader away from reality. Stories provide readers company on the beach, on the train home, in bed until deep into the night, until they have reached that final chapter, until they cry with the protagonist or slam the book down in fear or anger or better yet, the desire for more.

I suppose all authors, at one point or another, get hate mail. I suppose. But when I opened the emails, four of them, I wasn’t thinking about other authors. I was thinking about the person whose name was in the FROM line; someone I used to love. I was thinking about perceptions and reality. I was thinking about the past and letting go and moving on.

Here’s the lesson I want to share, because it’s taken me a while to accept it—the past is dust. It’s over. Dead. Gone. Never to be recaptured, changed, corrected or relived. Whatever mistakes or successes we’ve had only serve to provide guidance, a road map for the next time around. The only benefit the past has for each and every one of us is the lessons gained from it—the good, the bad, the ugly; the bitter or the sweet. If we live our lives rehashing he did/ she did we will waste the gift the good Lord has given to us. We will become bitter and spoiled, just as surely as a fungus attacks sweet fruit and ruins the bounty. We will waste our lives. And life is too short for that.

The emails hurt. They struck a chord so deep inside me that I had to catch my breath. They struck a chord so deep that twenty years flashed before my eyes, and I had to remember that I have always tried my best. The past is dust.

I was on my way to exercise when I opened the emails. I had to make a choice. To sit in the car and bawl my eyes out, to exercise or go home and hide under the covers. Oh! How I wanted the comfort of my bed. But I made a choice—no angry rebuttal, no (well, a few) tears. I let time and endorphins and writing this blog calm me. I knew that the best and only thing I could do for myself and that person—who is really not a “hater”— was to ask The Universe to send loving blessings, a wish that they find their own inner peace and understand the lessons available to them, and for the ability to move on.

And I do.

The French Quarter

My parents moved to California from Mississippi after World War 2. On my one and only visit to that state (and the South), I was twelve and to my teenage mind, Mississippi, and all the southern states we traveled through, was different from California. My memories were tainted by a fear of everything crawling and a teenager’s predisposition to opposition.

My great aunts lived in a small city, in a small house, and looking back on it, I’m sure so much company was an imposition to them. I remember the heat and humidity, the constancy of chirping and flying insects, the lightning bugs my aunt tried to get me to catch and stick on my finger (no way!!). I remember my father pointing in the direction of an overgrown field and telling me that was where he grew up. I didn’t like it.

Now, I think I love the South.

But, I have a West Coast “mindset” where the South is concerned. I’m positive our trip was jaded. We didn’t go “deep” into the countryside. We stayed at mainstream hotels. Yet, I wondered what lay beyond the cloak of tourism. Especially in New Orleans, where five years after Hurricane Katrina many people still haven’t recovered from the effects of that devastation. Racial turbulence? Jim Crow? At times I felt just like I was in California or New York or Chicago—where some of that racial BS still exists, too—but then, I was a tourist, right?!

In Charleston, we met a State Senator, a State representative and a Black Republican running for the U.S. Congress. That’s a change for sure.

What moved me about each of these cities was the Black history—good and not so good. History. The kind that teaches that the patterns and weaving techniques of a South Carolina sweetgrass basket have been passed down from slavery and West Africa. The kind that shows the still undecipherable signs for the Underground Railroad etched in the sides of pews at Savannah’s First African Baptist church. The kind that points to Savannah’s riverfront brick caves where slaves huddled naked, branded on both sides of their necks and the lacy, delicate bridges above where buyers observed and purchased slaves.

The Mississippi River, wide and deceptively calm in the late afternoon.

The mighty Mississippi

Plantations large and small, white buildings with spiral staircases, slave cabins, acres of land filled with 300 year old oak trees, lands tended to by slaves who planted those oaks, served those masters, and worked those fields—trees remain, slave names long gone in the wind that still stirs those leaves. (sanitized and prettified)

Slave Price list

Perhaps the greenery lent a special quality to each of these cities. Each square in the historic district of Savannah is anchored by a church and trees (a cumulative 67,000) dripping with Spanish moss and filled with cicadas that sing all day and night long. (Do they ever fall from the trees? Yikes! Do they ever stop?). The trees, the gardens, the brick façades of the townhouses all make you want to stop what you’re doing and just take it all in.

Block after block of the South of Broad Street area in Charleston filled with stately two and three story homes, wrought iron gates, verandahs labeled “shy” because they offer the owners privacy from passersby and nosy neighbors.

New Orleans took my breath away the first time I saw it over fourteen years ago. Northern California is beautiful, but its landscape doesn’t approach lush. New Orleans is lush; Louisiana is lush. The St. Charles streetcar, the slow sometimes barely noticeable, yet highly contagious drawls. The Garden District. Uptown. The same thing happened on this trip to the Big Easy. It called to me.

Makes me think about change or at least testing the possibilities.

PS: last night I watched “If God is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise,” and got a dose of reality. Spike Lee’s stark reveal of post-Katrina New Orleans and the BP oil disaster in the Gulf.

We liked these places and tours:
New Orleans
Camellia Grill
Willie Mae’s Scotch House was closed, but I hear the fried chicken has been voted the best!!
Joey K’s the best lima beans ever!

Charleston

Gallery Chuma prints, originals, and lithos of my favorite Jonathan Green and other local artists.
Alluette’s Café healthy, organic Gullah Cuisine and, there’s a Jazz Club, too. Featured in O Magazine, but they forgot to give the address.
“>Gullah Tours
Sites and Insights Tours

St. Helena Island
Gullah Grub
Even Martha Stewart and Anthony Bourdain found the food irresistibly de-lish!

Red Piano Too Art Gallery
Lovely Gullah art
Savannah
Black History Tours

Such is the life of a writer—this writer. When friends, non-writer friends, call me some mornings and ask, “What’re doin’?” I tell them, “I’m working!” It’s not hard to hear their skepticism.

So, mine is not a 9 to 5 gig. So, I don’t commute. So, I set my hours (which means that there are many late nights that I’m still working). So I don the wardrobe of my choosing (sweats are my preference), and determine the direction of my day. So I can spend all day in my own head.

While I may be eating my mom’s peanut brittle or her chocolate chip cookies (ahh!), almond butter sandwiches, avocados, rice crackers, apples, and sipping lattes (I find the best ways to procrastinate, don’t I?), it doesn’t mean I’m not working, because, baby, I am. And I’m loving every minute of it and wondering why people don’t see what I do as working.

My work is different even, for me.

Both my parents worked. Government jobs. Punch a time clock. Overtime. Race-home-from-work-to-feed-the-family, clean-the-house, run-errands, live-and-love jobs. Mom worked in an office and Dad at the Oakland Army base carpool. Through them the war in Vietnam hit home—my mother worked above the Army recruitment office where young men lined up after their draft numbers were called and protesters blocked the entrance. At one point, my father drove a transport truck between Oakland Army base and Travis Air Force base where the remains of soldiers arrived in the US. He once told me that often he heard “things” jiggling in the sometimes weightless coffins as he loaded them onto his truck.

My parents brought their paychecks home before depositing. They stood in long bank lines and waited for tellers to divide their deposits between their checkbook registers and hand-sized savings books.

When I started working after college, I loved getting my paycheck, standing in line at the bank just as my parents had done. My checks were small—I earned $90 a week at my first job! I loved seeing the numbers in my accounts going up (yes, they went down, too—unh huh!). I loved the business of banking. The properness of it all. Feeling like a bona fide grown-up.

It’s been a long time since my days of reporting to managers, waiting for performance reviews, cold calls, commuting on BART, clockwatching (oh, wait! I still do that), and sales calls. Most people relate to work days spent in office buildings, salons, markets, on bridges, in gardens, department stores, boutiques, and bookstores. They get the kind of work where people sweat, get promoted, win a case, pave a road, save a life, issue a traffic ticket, calculate, pick up the recycling, make money or get angry with a coworker.

Or just enjoy every day. Isn’t that what I do? Isn’t that what we all strive to do?

Duh, yeh. And after hours at my laptop, I can tell you, it’s work all the same.

You bet your bippy it was.

Travel has been the name of my game since then, and I’m loving it. Maybe I was a gypsy, a vagabond, a road entertainer in days gone by. I don’t feel bad hopping from taxi to plane to hotel to book readings. I’m learning to take it all in stride . . . but then it’s only been thirty-something days.

In winter, the Yellow Brick road is not yellow. Heading east, it’s white. (Please, please let my next book be released in spring!) February weekends in Atlanta, New York, Washington DC, and Chicago. Snow is beautiful when it piles thick on a slender tree limb. It’s delightful when it sits in parts of Central Park where New Yorkers have yet to trample. It’s mystical and metaphorical when it’s piled in front of the White House and you think of the Black man surrounding by loving (and fabulous) wife and children inside.

Snow is ugly, too! Yep. Piled curbside, its dirty, black and hard as ice cubes. Like romance gone bad. The Bay Area doesn’t see much snow—if it falls on the peaks of nearby Mt. Diablo or Mt. Tamalpais, it stays only for a couple of hours. Don’t know how well I’d do living in it. Might try to find out—who knows.

Either way, snow made me feel silly.

Snippets of my self-promoted tour (Yes, aspiring, first time, unproven authors, not only do you have to write the book, you’ve got to sell it.)

. . . Started in Hotlanta . . . We gathered at my friend Hortense’s charming home while she revealed just enough of Lena’s story to work the attendees into a buying frenzy (Thank you, H.S.) and spoiled us with chocolate … What a thrill to hear people laugh, sigh or harrumph at Lena’s predicament (in all the right places, too). Atlanta folks are warm and wonderful.

. . . New York. Harlem by night . . . snow falling on a brownstone. Songstress Sarah Dash and actresses Marva Hicks, Alyson Williams, and Barbara Montgomery read Lena’s story like the pros they are (Thank you!) Ran into a woman I hadn’t seen since 1969 . . . Columbus Circle—Searching for Tina Turner on the New Releases table, in full view. FP pal Deborah helped me celebrate what she helped to birth. Loved NYC, but must remember to bring something to keep my ears warm next time around.

. . . LA is . . . well LA. I always get confused when I’m there. I don’t know the cool places to visit or shop or eat. But the night Angela, Cynthia and their friends hosted my reading, I was not confused at all. Fabulous. Once again, four gifted women read from the novel. Ella Joyce, Mara, Charlayne Woodard, and Hattie Winston read like they were auditioning for the movie! Ooooo whee! They set my words on fire.

. . . Washington DC . . . missed the storm . . . Priscilla, Lisa, Beverly and friends . . . a classy event, complete with monogrammed napkins. Thank you, Julia Nixon, songstress extraordinaire, for lending your sultry voice to Lena’s story.

. . . .Yes, on my first visit to Chicago, I had to take a picture for my dream board (if you build it they will come). Ate grits at Wishbone (melt in your mouth biscuits). Thanks to friend Eve’s (Bite by Eve—Chicagoans check out her homemade rolls, bitebyeve@gmail.com) quick tour, I saw snow piled high around a very gray Lake Michigan. New friend, Jerome, filled his place to capacity . . . the charming Cynda Williams read the visit to the psychic (starting on p. 74) and brought that old man Vernon Withers to life. I’ve always loved her final scene in “Mo’ Better Blues,” when Cynda’s character sings “Harlem Blues.” She’s delightful.

March is already moving at a different pace, but will be just as interesting. This time the Yellow Brick road will put me face-to-face with Bay Area readers. I’m ready, are you?